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 mattyrm wrote:

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.

Only problem is that faith does not require any of this.

 d-usa wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.

Only problem is that faith does not require any of this.

How so?

By definition, it demands it.

If a priest tells a lie, and he says "God talked to me in a dream and he said you have to let me drink all the beer in your fridge or you will anger him" you either take it on faith, or you don't.

If you do, then you have been satisfied with a lie. Its pretty hard to argue otherwise surely?

You ate putting a lot of faith in your beliefs about what is required of Christians.

 d-usa wrote:
You ate putting a lot of faith in your beliefs about what is required of Christians.

It's perhaps a bad example. However different priests tell their congregations that they talked to Jesus and that he told them different things. Therefore at least some of them must be lying, and their congregations are believing the lie. In fact, they believe it exactly the same for each one, which means that either they're all believing lies or they'd all act the same even if it was all lies.

 d-usa wrote:
You ate putting a lot of faith in your beliefs about what is required of Christians.

I'm putting no faith in that belief, some Christians do feth all! There is no requirement other than a smattering of belief. I mean, you can even have doubts but your still a Christian.

I'm still officially a Christian for example. That's what it says on my birth certificate and I cant be arsed getting it changed just because I'm now agnostic... who is there to tell me otherwise?

But your argument is that a faith in God also requires that I request questioning and science and blindly follow anybody who claims to speak with authority from God.

None of which is true.

 d-usa wrote:
But your argument is that a faith in God also requires that I request questioning and science and blindly follow anybody who claims to speak with authority from God.

None of which is true.

No it doesn't.

I know far more about your/my old Religion than you seem to think I do. Look at my post several pages back, I'm well aware of how diverse Christianity is, and how the vast majority of Christians aren't Creationists for example. Most Christians respect Science, the last pope signed off on evolution, clearly I dont think most Christians are bat gak, just some of them! (primarily Americans)

Those are the guys I have an axe to grind with.. I'm hardly vehement with my dislike for the Church of England am I!?

 d-usa wrote:
So is page 5 the official point of where we switched from:

Hi, my name is [name] and I am [religion/faith/creed/nothing].

To:

Hi, you are wrong.

I was reading this thread thinking of joining it, but it seems I am too late.

 d-usa wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.

Only problem is that faith does not require any of this.

How conveniant for the church and others who might benefit:

"Do as we say no matter what and we dont have to prove anything..."

Good times.

 CT GAMER wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.

Only problem is that faith does not require any of this.

How conveniant for the church and others who might benefit:

"Do as we say no matter what and we dont have to prove anything..."

Good times.

Once again, a statement that has no truth to it.

 d-usa wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.

Only problem is that faith does not require any of this.

How conveniant for the church and others who might benefit:

"Do as we say no matter what and we dont have to prove anything..."

Good times.

Once again, a statement that has no truth to it.

 CT GAMER wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.

Only problem is that faith does not require any of this.

How conveniant for the church and others who might benefit:

"Do as we say no matter what and we dont have to prove anything..."

Good times.

Once again, a statement that has no truth to it.

I am serious, the church has no power to make members "do what we say no matter what".

Right, I'm going to a quick side-swap, just on the whole faith=/= evidence point.

 blood reaper wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

reaper...everyone has faith in something, even athiests, no matter how much some people want to think that they don't.

What do I have faith in?

Agreed, what do I have faith in?

Facts are proven, faith is again, blind belief, when you refer to faith you refer to Religous faith.

Yes you can have faith, but the faith you refer to is Religous faith.

I can name a couple things that you have faith in.

Perhaps most importantly, you have faith that Descartes deceiving demon doesn't exist. In other words you have faith in evidence. You would consider yourself seeing an orange on that table in front of you factual proof that it exists, no? When you pick it up and eat it, you rely on your senses to tell you it's real; you have faith that what you're senses are telling you - that you are eating a tasty orange - is real. However what if there is a deceiving demon changing your thought patterns? Considering that there is no evidence either way that such a being exists, there is in fact a 50/50 chance that it does (the only option is exist/not exist, and with no other variables/definitions of such a being, its impossible to say anything other than it could exist, hence 50/50) hence disbelief in such a deity is based entirely of faith. You have faith that it doesn't exist and isn't warping your thoughts to make you THINK you're eating an orange when in fact you are not. Kinda roundabout, but it works.

Another: you have faith in inductive reasoning.
All scientific method is based on inductive reasoning: inductive reasoning is reasoning which uses past events to determine future events. So for example, "in the past whenever I did x, y happened. Therefore whenever I do x in future, y will happen" (x could be heating water to 100 degrees C and y could be it boiling). It is the basic assumption that all empirical evidence is based on; that the future will be like events.

Where is the proof for this?
The crazy thing is, that the proof for inductive reasoning relies on inductive reasoning: "in the past 'the past was a good guide to the future', therefore I believe that in the future ' the (future) past will be a good guide to the (future) future' " - it's circular reasoning with no definitive proof for it.
Therefore we take it as an axiom - an axiom is something we accept without evidence so that our view of the world fits, (axioms include inductive reasoning, the idea that the external world exists, 1+1=2 ect. None of these have proof for them) as no practical thing we do could work without them (we couldn't experiment if we didn't accept inductive reasoning) however they have no proof and we base it entirely on faith (because we need it) - and faith is the only thing we have to base it on.

Even though I am anti organized religion, I can at least grasp the difference between Faith and being brainwashed by manipulative clergy. Is it really that difficult for you people?

If some Priest says pull down your pants and let me stick in your bum because God said so, and you let him do so as an act of "Faith" then you're fething thick.

 d-usa wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.

Only problem is that faith does not require any of this.

How conveniant for the church and others who might benefit:

"Do as we say no matter what and we dont have to prove anything..."

Good times.

Once again, a statement that has no truth to it.

I am serious, the church has no power to make members "do what we say no matter what".

I didnt speak to their degree of power. I spoke to their expectations/attitude as described in the two people I quoted.

Thankfully they DONT have that power, though they once surely did...

 walker90234 wrote:
Right, I'm going to a quick side-swap, just on the whole faith=/= evidence point.

 blood reaper wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

reaper...everyone has faith in something, even athiests, no matter how much some people want to think that they don't.

What do I have faith in?

Agreed, what do I have faith in?

Facts are proven, faith is again, blind belief, when you refer to faith you refer to Religous faith.

Yes you can have faith, but the faith you refer to is Religous faith.

I can name a couple things that you have faith in.

Perhaps most importantly, you have faith that Descartes deceiving demon doesn't exist. In other words you have faith in evidence. You would consider yourself seeing an orange on that table in front of you factual proof that it exists, no? When you pick it up and eat it, you rely on your senses to tell you it's real; you have faith that what you're senses are telling you - that you are eating a tasty orange - is real. However what if there is a deceiving demon changing your thought patterns? Considering that there is no evidence either way that such a being exists, there is in fact a 50/50 chance that it does (the only option is exist/not exist, and with no other variables/definitions of such a being, its impossible to say anything other than it could exist, hence 50/50) hence disbelief in such a deity is based entirely of faith. You have faith that it doesn't exist and isn't warping your thoughts to make you THINK you're eating an orange when in fact you are not. Kinda roundabout, but it works.

Another: you have faith in inductive reasoning.
All scientific method is based on inductive reasoning: inductive reasoning is reasoning which uses past events to determine future events. So for example, "in the past whenever I did x, y happened. Therefore whenever I do x in future, y will happen" (x could be heating water to 100 degrees C and y could be it boiling). It is the basic assumption that all empirical evidence is based on; that the future will be like events.

Where is the proof for this?
The crazy thing is, that the proof for inductive reasoning relies on inductive reasoning: "in the past 'the past was a good guide to the future', therefore I believe that in the future ' the (future) past will be a good guide to the (future) future' " - it's circular reasoning with no definitive proof for it.
Therefore we take it as an axiom - an axiom is something we accept without evidence so that our view of the world fits, (axioms include inductive reasoning, the idea that the external world exists, 1+1=2 ect. None of these have proof for them) as no practical thing we do could work without them (we couldn't experiment if we didn't accept inductive reasoning) however they have no proof and we base it entirely on faith (because we need it) - and faith is the only thing we have to base it on.

You might want to break out your dictionary.
Faith:
Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

inductive reasoning - reasoning from detailed facts to general principles

As inductive reasoning has facts to back it up, it is in no way faith. You don't need to have faith that heating water to 100c will cause it to boil, after the trillions of times it has been done its an empirically proven fact. It is not circular reasoning either, get out your pot of water and a thermostat and see for yourself.

proof 1+1=2
http://tachyos.org/godel/1+1=2.html

circular reasoning is committed "when a proposition which requires proof is assumed without proof"

For what you think a axiom is, I think you really mean presupposition "To believe or suppose in advance." Without some presuppositions You could never get anywhere as you can't prove this world exists outside of my imagination. You can't even prove you exist, 50/50 you don't. so by granting some presuppositions that everyone can agree on (there is a universe), we can move on to other questions. Otherwise we'll spend the whole thread by you trying to convince me you exist and are not a product of my imagination as I lay here in a coma. As its my coma and I created all of you and my world, I am your god! 50/50 right?

not every choice is a faith choice, and not everything is based on faith. I guess you have faith that there's 50/50 chance that a invisible pink unicorn lives in my basement? and a 50/50 chance for the 3700 other gods that have been claimed to exist so there must be around 1850 gods running around then? And a 50/50 chance that tomorrow I am going to go back in time and start the big bang and create our universe. And a 50/50 chance the packers are going to win the superbowl this year, I better get to my bookie those are some damn good odds.

It takes faith to believe your god exists as there is not a shred of proof for him to exist. It takes no faith for me to know a god exists as I am a god

 blood reaper wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Faith is not a dirty word.

Don't say that! It'll shatter their version of reality!

I never said it is a dirty word, nor will it shatter my version of reality.

I simply hate it when people tell me to have faith when they are making the claim someone in the sky made the planet in 7 days and I must obey or suffer, without giving me a single reason to do so other than faith.

I said nothing of the sort nor do I think any one else in this thread arguing for team religion has said anything like that either. So I'll appreciate you not putting words in my mouth. If anything I've been and am just as critical of literal christian creationists as any committed atheist. I don't think a single christian in this thread has anything in the vein of creationism either. Nor has any one said you must obey our arbitrary deity. I know I was advocating FINDING your faith, seeking your own reasons. It's not something anyone can give you, it's a decision and a unique experience that you must find for yourself.

 Orlanth wrote:
I claim to know God and speak with Him

*sigh*

Why do you think it's God you speak to, and not Odin? Or Zeus or Jupiter?

When you understand why you dismiss Odin, Zeus, Jupiter, and every other deity, you'll understand why you should dismiss God.

He, like most people, dismisses them because he chooses not to believe in them. He chooses not to simply because he has decided that they aren't real.

It's an arbitrary decision I know, but then, seeing as the very idea of god is alogical and ascientific, it's about as arbitrary as dismissing all divinity as well so, what's your point?

 LordofHats wrote:
He, like most people, dismisses them because he chooses not to believe in them. He chooses not to simply because he has decided that they aren't real.

It's an arbitrary decision I know, but then, seeing as the very idea of god is alogical and ascientific, it's about as arbitrary as dismissing all divinity as well so, what's your point?

You and I can see that, but he can't. He thinks there is valid evidence that justifies his belief in God.

 Kaldor wrote:
You and I can see that, but he can't. He thinks there is valid evidence that justifies his belief in God.

Everyone believes there is evidence that justifies their belief. I do. Its not something that can be approached logically (well, it has its own logic sort of).

Hi, I'm an atheist and I like puppies.

 Blacksails wrote:
Hi, I'm an atheist and I like puppies.

But do you have faith that the puppies like you back?

 Blacksails wrote:
Hi, I'm an atheist and I like puppies.

Hi... I'm a heathen that sends his sons to catholic schools... I like puppies and cute things too!


ps... where's Frazzle's awesome collection of weiner dogs????

They were never real, just part of our imagination.

 whembly wrote:

Silly baby chicken. You belong in the kitten's food bowl, not on his head!

 d-usa wrote:
They were never real, just part of our imagination.

So how long is his suspension then?

That seems like a nice note to end on. The thread's been a bit hostile and circular for a while.